The invention relates to the installations for heating and/or air-conditioning a passenger compartment, especially of a motor vehicle, which is subdivided into areas called xe2x80x9cfrontxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9crearxe2x80x9d.
Some of these treatment enclosures comprise an inlet which supplies them with cool air, at least one front channel for delivering treated air to a first outlet supplying a first part of a front area of the passenger compartment, at least one second outlet for supplying a second part of this front area with treated air, a mixing chamber, supplying the first outlet and the front channel, and a heating chamber supplying the mixing chamber with heated air and supplied, just like this mixing chamber, from the cool-air inlet.
The first part of the front area generally designates the windscreen de-icing area, while the second part of this front area generally designates the right-hand and left-hand areas for ventilating the feet and/or the central ventilation area of the dashboard of the vehicle. However, it may be otherwise.
The distribution of the treated air for the rear area is generally done by an attached duct, external to the distribution enclosure, and supplied from a specific outlet. Such a configuration increases the clutter in the engine compartment and/or of the passenger compartment, as well as the complexity of the enclosure or even the number of models of enclosures.
Hence the object of the invention is to improve the situation. The invention also allows standardisation of the manufacture of the air-conditioning apparatus with or without ventilation for the rear of the vehicle.
To that end the invention proposes an air-treatment enclosure of the type described in the introduction, in which a rear channel is provided, supplied from the mixing chamber and intended to deliver treated air to a third outlet for supplying the rear area of the passenger compartment.
In one preferred application, the front channel is intended to supply treated air to the right-hand and left-hand parts of the front area of the passenger compartment of a motor vehicle (the parts being the central or low ventilation areas, for example).
In that way, some of the treated air, intended, for example, for the front areas for ventilating the feet, can be tapped off directly into the mixing chamber in order to supply the rear area. This makes it possible to reduce the size while simplifying the architecture of the air-treatment enclosure.
In one preferred embodiment, the enclosure according to the invention is formed by two assembled half-shells. In this case, it is advantageous for the rear channel to be an attached duct formed from one or two pieces and housed in the front channel. This in fact makes it possible to start with conventional treated-air-distribution enclosures which are cut out in order to form the second outlet and in which the duct is housed before coupling the two half-shells together. However, the rear channel could be delimited by an attached wall co-operating with one wall of the enclosure.
According to another characteristic of the invention, the enclosure may include an auxiliary channel, for example an attached duct, equipped with a first end, tapping off cool air between the cool-air inlet and the mixing chamber, and with a second end, delivering this tapped-off cool air in the vicinity of the inlet of the rear channel.